Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has taken the rap for mistakenly making public confidential information about the value of Telstra's copper network assets.
A government report on plans for its national broadband network — marked "commercial in-confidence" — was tabled in the Senate on Monday.
Senator Conroy on Tuesday described as "regrettable" the unfortunate error of not removing the confidential information before the document was tabled.
"I take responsibility ... it was a mistake," he told the Senate, adding the government was concerned the information had been released.
Senator Conroy said he had spoken to Telstra's chief executive David Thodey about the mistake and the telco had issued a statement to the stock exchange.
Opposition senators called on Senator Conroy to resign, a step he said he did not think was necessary. Opposition communications spokesman Nick Minchin said the error was a "most serious breach of confidentiality" and that the release of the information was proof of incompetence and Senator Conroy should not be trusted with the handling of sensitive information of telcos.
But Senator Conroy hit back at the opposition's "gross hypocrisy", accusing them of seeking the release of the sensitive information in the first place. He said he was confident constructive negotiations could continue with Telstra on the national broadband network.
The document in question was an evaluation report prepared by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, looking at the request for proposals for the rollout of the national broadband network. It was dated January 2009.
...and it's increasingly obvious!